John, we refuse to back down.
Instead of meaningfully addressing police violence, Cori's colleagues in Congress and leaders in the Democratic party are instead choosing to attack our movement to save Black lives and livelihoods.
First: Nancy Pelosi directly attacked Cori's commitment to defunding the police stating, "With all due respect in the world for Cori Bush, that’s not the position of the Democratic party."
Then: During President Biden's State of the Union speech earlier this month, Biden failed to address the dire need to save Black lives instead stating "We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. It's to fund the police. Fund them."
Now: We're not slowing down in our efforts to defund the police and work towards legislation that divests from the criminalization of our communities and invests instead in the social services that will actually keep our communities safe.
The Democratic establishment is trying to belittle our work and deny the progress our communities desperately need. It's urgent we have a wave of grassroots support for our movement. Please, will you chip in to show everyone the strength of our anti-racist movement — and that we won't back down?
We know that defunding the police is not the problem. In fact, our movement for racial justice is the very reason why we were able to deliver the White House and Congress in 2020.
That's why Cori has been leading the call for the Democratic party to finally pass meaningful police reform from ending chokeholds and no-knock warrants to passing Cori's bill, the People's Response Act, to transform our system of public safety.
The establishment may be trying to pressure Cori to accept the status quo, but she won't — and we won't either. If you believe in our mission for safer communities, will you make a $5 donation today to fund our organizing work in defense of Black lives?
In solidarity,
Team Cori
